Matty
by Flagfish
Summary: Matt x Mello, hardcore yaoi, AU. This story is dedicated to a good friend. Suspense; love; human introspection; the very perverse and gratuitous sex scenes do not begin until ch. 5, as, other than the prologue, the first 4 chapters occur during childhood
1. Chapter 1

_Watch me pull this off._

_XXX_

_Prologue_

Naked as the day he was born, Matt stared coolly at his reflection in the oblong looking glass before him.

The long red hair, the red, transparent eyelashes, as though he had no eyelashes at all, and freckles covering the bridge of his nose, his neck and his shoulders, and down along both his arms, he gazed slowly across the white expanse of his chest, ripe with the end of adolescence, as though it got there before him, before he ever managed to mature at all.

His old, familiar smirk, smirking back at him, _there it is_, and _get on with it, get on with it so I don't have to pay so much attention to myself._

The alternating protrusions of ribs, thin and hard with youth, giving way to the flat abdomen beneath and the angular depression of the inguinal ridge, farther to the symphysis pubis and his member, body and glans, and then the narrow thighs, the hard bones at his knees and his long lower legs, covered just so slightly with transparent red hair that stopped just above the articulation at the feet.

He certainly looked an awful lot like any other grown up human being.

But is that how it is?

Is that how it is.

So that's how it is.

XXX

My story begins thirteen years before.

Mello knew already, from the ominous blaze of purple diffusing slowly in the distance, beyond the thick twine of the trees, that it was too late.

Eight years old.

His blue eyes narrowed in spite, teeth clenching and fingers tight around the scathed handle of his sword, hard and heavy for his age, but his no less.

_The beast was mine_.

Ever since he'd heard of it, ever since he'd read about it, Mello knew, he was going to be the one, he would get there first, he had it in him and he would die before someone else beat him to it.

Clutching hard at the handle of his sword and the bag on his back, he set off running, driven by the fire of rage, through the woods to the edge of the cliff where the taste of smoke grew ever thicker, until at last he had to stop because he couldn't breathe anymore.

Sure enough, there lay the beast, something not like a beast at all but really a chaotic, enormous mass of dirt and scales, and the most pungent smell he's ever smelled in his life.

Out of breath and out of sorts, Mello stopped at his heels and stared, wide eyed with disbelief, at the slain dragon and the surreal gusts of smoke all around, and, furious, he scanned the area to find just who it was who dared take this from him.

There was no one around. Angry at his own body's weakness, he tried to suppress his cough, to no avail, refusing to collapse under the strain, until at last he came to the dragon's very face, enormous and repugnant and horrific, drenched in the toxic secretions of its own demise, and, forcing himself to stare, Mello took the whole image in, burning it into the reaches of his mind as never to forget what someone else had beat him to.

He swore in that moment of childlike revenge eternal hatred against whoever this person was.

Eternal.

An adult, most likely.

Someone who wouldn't believe Mello could do it in the first place.

And there went his chance to prove himself.

Refusing to leave the spot and deliberately forcing himself to remain and subsist in the hard fumes and smoke, he settled down, glaring angrily at the giant head, small fingers tight on the handle of his sword.

He thought he was angry enough to slay the person who did it.

But nobody showed up.

He waited for a long time. The sun had begun to go down. But nobody showed up to claim his victory. No one had showed up unto whom Mello at last could unleash his wrath.

_…bastard!_

Mello thought, already hungry for dinner as he rose from his seat in irritation. He weaved in and out through the trees for another twenty minutes or so before, at last, his eyes fell upon the sleeping form of another boy, around his age, serenely put out and covered from head to toe in pure filth.

And a book resting forgotten in his hands.

Within seconds, the glistening tip of Mello's sword was directed at the boy's neck.

"Who the hell are you,"

he hissed, but the boy would not rise.

"Spill it!"

Mello demanded, louder now, the sharp metal edge menacing at the boy's throat.

Very slowly, the boy's eyes opened and, drowsily, he inspected the sword at his neck and the hand to whom it belonged, and smiling the most sheepish, charming smile, he laughed.

_Fucker actually laughed!_

"That's quite a sword," he grinned, and his grin was irritating, mocking almost, and, in rage, Mello pressed it tighter against the soft flesh of his throat.

"That dragon was _mine_!"

Hardly intimidated, the boy smiled even more, his red lips stretching insufferably into a slow grin.

"Ah, the dragon…." He said as with knowing wisdom, as if now he completely understood how justified Mello was in his rage.

"You--!!"

Mello sputtered, dropping his sword to the ground and now leaning in to punch the boy directly.

What followed was a brutal fist fight through which, aggravatingly, neither boy prevailed triumphant, and soon it was night-time, and soon citizens had come to gather, having heard of the dragon's demise, and soon also there came Mello's headmaster in his search, the wizened Quillish Wammy, with caretaker Roger Ruvie and followed by a train of children who really weren't old enough to go out at this time at all, and certainly not old enough to look unto a slain dragon, but who ultimately had grated upon the nerves of the wizened headmaster so much that at last he allowed them to come.

"Oh, hell, they can't know about this," the boy whispered suddenly to no one in particular, quickly letting go of Mello's clothes as his scrawny limbs began their clumsy ascent up the trunk of the tree, "quick, let me go—"

Confused, Mello almost let him go, catching him just in time.

"What in the hell do you mean, _they can't know_," he hissed.

About the dragon…?

"Let go," the boy warned, and because Mello wouldn't, he wrestled himself free, allowing the shirt to pull clear off his head as he made his way up the trunk.

Furious, Mello threw the cloth to the ground, clutching at his belongings as he climbed after him.

_What the hell?_

Mello whispered, watching as the town's citizens began to gather below, gawking with astonishment at the fallen beast, around which now the smoke had thinned.

The boy wouldn't reply, and merely continued staring downward, wide-eyed, as slowly the muddy palm of his hand came around Mello's mouth.

"I stole two hundred darts," he whispered, "they can't know it's me who did this."

Darts. He slew a dragon with darts…!

Mello flipped his head to stare at the boy incredulously. "You slew a dragon! Single-handedly—and with darts—! And you're hiding out!"

"_Shhh—!!_"

Came the reply, "they'll have my head!"

Mello watched with pure agony as the dragon he could have slain and didn't was slowly inspected by the townspeople and investigations had begun to figure out how exactly this happened.

"Shit."

He murmured when he saw that, quite patiently, under the tree there stood the kindly young Master L. Lawliet, gazing up with serene curiosity and all but waiting for Mello to explain himself.

"Don't tell him," the boy whispered, realizing they've been caught.

"I don't need to tell him," Mello responded in an angry whisper, "he'll figure it out."

"He did it," the boy announced to the youth standing below, one slender finger pointed directly at Mello.

Mello, who would have loved nothing more than to have done it, nevertheless couldn't stand being patronized.

He clenched his teeth in anger while the young Master Lawliet below wondered to himself whether it really was possible for two young boys to have slain a dragon. If it was, then really, he was quite impressed.

They would be hiding because slaying a dragon is a big deal, heroic an act though it may be. But not Mello. Mello wouldn't hide out after something like this. Then the other boy must have done it.

"All by yourself," he mumbled, expression unreadable and thumb nudging at his lower lip as he inspected the younger boy, "single-handedly…"

Sheer panic in his eyes, the boy flipped his gaze to the youth standing below, then to the blonde at his side, and whispered, "No, no, it wasn't—"

And soon there came commotion from below because it had come to the crowd's attention that the dragon was slain using a large number of poisoned darts, and now the boy was all the more panicked as the chatter of bewilderment spread through the group.

The youth looked back up at them, all the more amused now. "With darts…" he mumbled, "you slew a dragon with poisoned darts…"

"I didn't!" the boy protested, to no avail, as L's mind was set.

"But that's not a bad thing," the youth replied, now making his way up the tree among them, "that wouldn't elicit this kind of response."

"He stole the darts," Mello hissed, and, at that, the other boy was ready to punch him again, while L's eyebrows rose to his hairline; ah—there it is.

"…I see…" he replied, laughing softly to himself.

They continued watching the scene for several minutes more.

"Well then," he said at last, "we'll just have to make payment for the darts—won't we."

"You don't plan to tell them—?"

"But you'll have to earn the money," L continued, "by doing work."

More than anything, though, he was interested in taking in the seven-year-old boy so supposedly ingenious as to have pulled this off - if, really, he had.

The boy's name was Matt, and this is the story of how he came to live at Wammy's House, and all that transpired there and thereafter—

—and just what kind of boy he was.

_To be continued.._


	2. Chapter 2

Mello had received quite a spanking after the stunt he pulled that night.

Leaving home during study hour and endangering his life against a fire-breathing dragon—

It wasn't the spanking that infuriated him, however, but the clear implication that this was something beyond his capacity, while here to his side sat a boy one year his younger who managed that very feat.

"You're so dead,"

Mello informed him while the two were sent to their bath, Mello without dinner and Matt with prospects of dinner to come, if he had helped make it.

But, nevertheless, they quietly helped each other disrobe, Mello quite astounded by just how filthy the other boy was.

"Is that from the dragon,"

He asked quietly, eyes trailing not only the dirt all along his skin but also the bruises and cuts, and Matt nodded, but he didn't seem all that proud of it, really.

After they had stepped into the tub and rinsed each other, Mello had discovered that Matt had red hair, and that he somehow had managed to defeat a beast ten times his size without any serious injuries.

Really, Mello wanted to hate him more than he did, but there was something about this kid that he couldn't quite hate so much, and this was unusual, because at hatred Mello was really quite adept.

And no,

_You didn't do it for pride—_

No, he did it—

Because he was bored.

That was the answer he gave to the headmaster, and that was the answer he gave to Mello, too—

Matt had slain a dragon—with a set of stolen darts—because he was bored.

"Just what kind of crazy idiot are you," Mello whispered to Matt when they lay to sleep, side by side late that night.

And, grinning that same charming, sheepish grin he showed Mello when first they met, Matt pulled a small package from the inside of his gown—

Something he hid away for Mello at dinner—

A bar of chocolate fudge.

Mello's face brightened all at once as his gaze met Matt's in silent understanding.

Just the kind of crazy idiot, perhaps, who might become his friend.

XXX

Matt was different.

All around there fluttered the heart of accomplishment, a genuine love for wizardry and the written word, fueled not merely by the thirst for competition and acknowledgement but, above all else, by a solid and real passion for challenge.

But not for Matt.

Introverted and content, Matt did things not for the grand opportunity to achieve or discover or advance, but because – and if – they entertained him. He was different; but he wasn't in the way.

Matt's mother was killed in the plague. His father, he never met him, but his mother, like everyone's mother, was killed in the plague. To Matt, really, it was all the same, because he had very little recollection of either one of them, and it wasn't like with Mello, with Mello who was filled with bitter feelings about his parents who were taken from him, or how he was put at the care of a priest, and how he, too, was expected to become a priest.

"It seems nice,"

Matt had mumbled from above the book he was reading, "priests grow gardens."

"You can have your stupid garden."

"Yeah?"

It was like a bad joke, for someone like Mello to be raised with priesthood in mind, but nobody knew that when he was so young, and he did everything in his power to show his will as a mage, instead.

And Matt – he hardly thought about what he'd like to learn. He learned whatever they felt like teaching him, and everyone liked him for that. He also seemed to show about the same amount of enthusiasm toward everything – and this wasn't very much.

There was a little bastard known as Near, a curious, asthmatic boy whose sole reason for existing seemed to be aggravating Mello. Cerebral and stern, Near was granted access to the library at the young age of six, a full year before Mello, and, under supervision, even to books of and about wizardry.

Matt could tell, and really, was mildly amused by, Mello's obvious, murderous rage in response to this. Clearly, there had been some mistake. Certainly, it's Near who was destined to live among the Brotherhood, and not Mello.

"You could grow herbs in your garden,"

Matt would smirk, because inciting Mello's rage was really quite the enjoyable form of recreation, and so was the fist fight that followed, and so was tormenting Near after that.

They did wicked things to Near.

They snuck in at night and lined the inside of his clothes with porridge, they cornered him and beat him up, they even went so far as to tie him naked to the trunk of a tree and leave him outside for hours, until, furious and red in the face, Roger would later find him there, aggravated and coughing and miserable, and then again Matt and Mello were in trouble.

But there was no helping the boy. No matter what they did to him, no matter how far they tormented and humiliated him, he nevertheless somehow managed to surpass them and everyone else in every conceivable regard.

But, even if making Near miserable hardly reversed Master Wammy's determination to train Near as a mage, it should, Mello reasoned, at the very least, question his determination to train Mello as a priest.

They could get into the library now, they were allowed, but under supervision, and not to the books they certainly would use to attempt all manner of mischief.

Matt liked books, and he liked the library, and, unlike Mello, he didn't mind terribly being supervised, he didn't even mind falling asleep at the library while supervised, nor the reprimand that followed, and certainly it didn't stop him from doing it again.

"We could maybe look while Near is reading them," he suggested to Mello one day in the bath, "we could pretend to be studying next to him."

"No one's gonna fall for that."

Matt thought for a moment, slowly sinking under the water.

Under the water, his mouth stretched into a wicked grin.

"We could help him study when he's ill."

"What are you on about. Near isn't ill."

"Not yet,"

came the reply, and slowly, Mello began to smile back.

"No, not yet."

"Priests should know their way around garden herbs, what would you suggest?"

No sooner did the words leave Matt's lips than he was immediately attacked, a barrage of hands and arms and teeth that left the room covered entirely with puddles of water inches deep and would land them both in trouble—again.

_To be continued..._


	3. Chapter 3

Near was different, too.

This went without saying – the mere fact that a boy so young showed capacity so far beyond his age was curious enough, but there was more than this, there was an eerie silence to him, severity and focus far beyond his years.

He would study and think for hours, silent as his small fingers laced and knotted together endless chains of straw, in repeating, maddening designs, sheets and layers on layers of complex, intricate patterns he would bind in endless stacks before him.

Matt and Mello had found them in his room when they came in to torment him, they found them on his dresser and writing desk and floor, immaculate, perfect stacks of complex and accurately-woven knots almost too precise to be made by human hands.

"What a freak,"

Mello would whisper to Matt, "maybe he does this with the sorcery they taught him."

But they both had seen him at work making and stacking the knots, and neither of them thought that even such a prodigious student as Near had gotten so far in his training after only a year or two.

They had hoped to make him ill by collecting powder and pollen from plants in the nearby woods, by bringing it in at night and forcing it up his airways, they've seen what pollen did to him before.

But it didn't work, they watched him deliberately during the course of the following day, but, exasperatingly, he seemed completely fine. And, to add insult to injury, they also were discovered, and the little bastard must have been awake the entire time and reported them in the morning.

It was Master Lawliet who confronted them that day, gently pulling them aside before supper and sitting them down in his chamber. He stared at them fidgeting for a few moments, expression unreadable as his large eyes darted from Matt to Mello and back.

He wasn't training for the priesthood, but dangling between his hands was a manuscript of the Old Testament, delicately, between his thumbs and forefingers, a curious habit. Seeing L with such an item was odd, out of sorts, somehow unfitting, and, without a word, he slowly placed the tome in his lap, carefully turning the gold-lined pages almost to the beginning of the book, until he reached the part of interest.

He didn't read to them, though, but merely looked up through his long, dark hair, and murmured,

"Matt and Mello know this story."

Matt liked to read.

Curious, he leaned over from his seat across the way, slowly standing up as to join at L's side.

It was the story about how Cain killed Abel, his younger brother, because of jealousy.

Matt smirked, restraining himself as best he could from offering his gratitude to L for the brilliant suggestion.

L made note of his laughter, large eyes darting in Matt's direction, but he made no comment. Instead, he went on to say,

"There are two theories about this."

He had their interest now.

"One interpretation is that Cain lured his brother with deliberate intention to slay him. The other is that he meant merely to confront him, but a quarrel ensued, and, in the heat of the moment, there came murder."

Mello and Matt looked up slowly.

Perhaps L had conveyed to Matt early on an intent to report him to the arrow smith merely to intimidate him. Despite it all, neither he nor anyone else in the house ever gave him away. There was severe, bloody penalty for theft, and, taking pity on the boy, the lords of the house kept their silence, and the dragon's slaughter went unclaimed. It was accepted reluctantly under the premise that, before at last it died, the beast managed perhaps to devour the ill-fated hero—but when officials came the next day to slice the dragon open and find out, it was gone, curiously, as though it never had been there at all.

"I think with you the case is not deliberate intent," L said quietly, "but the result is nevertheless the same."

He said no more; the point was made.

The story of Cain and Abel was extra taboo because they were brothers. He killed his own family, he killed his own kind.

Near didn't seem at all like Matt and Mello's kind, but the point was made: they were to regard him as family. If Matt really could kill a dragon, then one would think he also could kill a little boy.

The pages of the manuscript were pretty, the gold-laced leaves reflected the candlelight from the nearby lantern with flickering brilliance, and the vivid colors dazzled all around the carefully inked words.

Matt thought he might become a scribe, but doing something so meticulous for hours on end every day could get very dull, more likely than not.

The boys were dismissed, and on their descent down the hard stone stairwell, Matt interlaced his fingers in Mello's, whispering,

"But he doesn't know the reason we meant to make him ill."

This was true; no one had any way of knowing about stage two of their ploy—gaining access to the spell books.

They would have to think of a new plan, and they put some thought into this, but they soon became tasked with the labor of lessons, the hard work of their studies, and, for a long time, their mission went forgotten, an absent familiar in the back of their minds until they no longer thought much of it at all.

It was not until the following winter that an incident had occurred.

There was a holiday dinner, organized and arranged days before, with preparation of all manner of food in generous, hearty servings that would leave everyone in the house lethargic and fatigued for the full day that followed.

Everyone who stayed throughout, that is.

It was during the feast, partway at the toasting at the second course that there came from outside the gate the familiar trotting of horses, increasingly louder, before soon there was a knock at the front door.

They got him.

Who knows how, or who told, or why the investigation took so very long, but they got him, they arrested Matt at the front door and took him away.

There must be some mistake, Master Wammy had said, the boy is under our supervision, he has no reason to steal, he's only just a little boy.

Mello protested, too, slender arms slung all around Matt's neck as he pressed him possessively to himself, glaring at the guards with rage so unbecoming to a training priest.

But it was no use.

Kicking and crying horrific profanities so near the refectory where everyone could hear, Mello was peeled away from Matt, and, writhing from within Roger's grasp, he watched his friend taken away.

XXX

***

It wasn't just theft. It was the dragon, too.

They knew, somehow, about both.

For theft, they cut off your hands, you could bleed to death, you could die from disease that came thereafter.

What transpired that night, the prospects for Matt were not good.

For the brewing of poison, they made you blind.

Matt was ingenious. He could get himself out of this. How much, he wondered to himself when they tied him down with ropes to the board, how much do they know, what have they for proof—

Negotiations, they knew somehow that he had slain the dragon, as well, he reminded them of that, a heroic deed, that was worth something, wasn't that right.

Blades of iron, stained already with old blood, ropes and coal and rods and instruments of torture, axes, knives, and fire.

Killing people, this also was killing your own kind.

They wouldn't kill him, no, just penalize—just—_just_.

Was it Master Lawliet who gave him away?

The man pacing alongside the board walked slowly, browsing, was he, turning over in his mind what instrument, what manner of torment to use, and Matt's eyes followed the motion of his hand, knife to blade to axe to—

His hand came to rest on one of the items, and he picked it up, bringing it to the board, holding it in clear view.

A dart, the needle tip emerging through a hardened scale of skin. A dragon scale.

Matt recognized the dart—sure enough, it was his—inasmuch as something he stole was really his.

Which, he was now so keenly aware, it wasn't.

But there was something more.

The dart wasn't lodged in the scale so deeply. It was secured in place by small ropes.

Small, intricately woven, knotted ropes, with precise and complex patterns repeating in meticulous sequences, layer by layer.

_To be continued..._


	4. Chapter 4

Matt's eyes glittered in astonishment as he scanned the tiny, minute knots holding the dart in place.

_Little fucker turned me in_.

How else would they have linked the evidence to him?

But slaying a dragon, wasn't that worth something? Certainly—f

"Save your breath,"

The man laughed dryly to himself, still going through the various infstruments on the benchtop, "I don't care what they say, there's no way a dragon that size could be killed with darts. All evidence shows it was burned to death."

Matt went mute with surprise.

What? _But I—_

"I—beg your pardon—?!"

What could you really say to someone who accuses you of lying when you're not?

"The dragon was burned to a crisp,"

Came the man's voice, deep and guttural with disinterest as at last he returned to Matt, not with an axe or sword or knife, but with a small black container.

Matt couldn't help but smirk at this, laughing to himself despite the situation.

"It was a fire-breathing dragon." _You moron._

"Fire breathing dragons don't set fire to themselves."

Whatever Matt was going to say next remained frozen mid-syllable at his lips—

Dude had a point.

Matt thought back now on the gusts of smoke rising all around the tremendous body of the beast, the putrid stench and his own body, covered entirely with grime. But he killed it, he killed it fair and square—not with fire, but with darts.

Glimmering green eyes darted back and forth in astonishment as Matt tried uselessly to make sense of the events that transpired then, before, all at once, the man's large hand pressed tightly against his forehead.

"_Wh—_!"

The next thing he could see was the other hand raised just above his eyes, dropping something inward, some kind of powder—

His screams pierced all throughout the large chamber, reverberating loud and heart-wrenching, agonizing and shattered with despair.

And then there was a blast, and then everything went dark.

***

Everything was very hot.

Matt dreamt there was a young man, a very kind young man, dark hair, speaking to him, saying things in a language he couldn't understand, gentle, paternal, warm—

_Yth geou troth wux agantal, isthasy._

And then again there was encompassing darkness all around, giving way to the unconsciousness of sleep.

***

Small, angry fingers, small but hardened already with the foreshadowed anticipation of adulthood to come, silent, silent, quietly picking at rocks, little rocks, little gravely trails engraving angrily into the hard stone wall of the house.

Angry words, obscene words.

What the hell was the point of having a friend.

_There was a fire_,

Now it was a fire, and before that there was the plague, and if you get yourself to care about people, things like this can become your business, and then things like this can really piss you off, and they can really hurt—

Mello's small fingers grasped hard at the cross around his neck, painfully, tugging, yanking at the thing with silent rage and regret—

It was like a horrible curse that bound him to his fate.

In his anguish, Mello had leafed bitterly through manuscripts he never before cared to study, the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament and the Bible, scrolls and songs and psalms,

_There were no survivors_

Is this the pity the Lord has on us, is this the grand, ultimate plan—

_The entire building had burned down_,

And now the one friend he had made was gone.

Small fingers tugged hard at the cross around his neck, and with a hard twist of his hand, Mello tore the thing off, chucking it directly against the hard stone wall and listening to the metallic _clang_ as it fell to the earth from there.

***

He didn't know how much time had passed.

But when Matt woke up, he was tucked in white sheets and blankets, bandages all around.

The room was dim with the golden glow of afternoon drifting softly through a window somewhere, and his vision was fuzzy, straining somehow.

"You're awake,"

The voice was so deep, so much like that of the man who tormented him, that Matt nearly jumped in place—

The man who—

Was he still there—?

He couldn't see very well, but nearby was the very large figure of a great, big person, dressed no doubt in the familiar robes of a priest, with the same large hands his tormentor has had, but somehow, nevertheless, with remarkable kindness.

What happened?

_Where am I?_

This place wasn't Wammy's House.

Slowly attempting to sit up, Matt turned his head to inspect the priest nearby, only to discover that, in the dim light of the room, his vision would not focus. No—it wouldn't focus at all.

"You're lucky to be alive,"

Came the man's voice, deep and calm, serious but merciful. He approached the bed and knelt beside him, a cup in his hand filled with water.

In the man's large hand, the glass seemed somehow very small, a miniature doll's mug encircled by the enormous digits of a giant.

Matt's body hurt, his abdomen piercing sharp with pain as he bent to reach the cup, pretending by nature to smirk at the pain, _nah, that's, this, this is nothing_.

His small fingers closed around the mug.

_Priests grow gardens._

They found him in the forest, the man told him, unconscious on his back and half naked, patches of dark ash along his skin here and there, dehydrated and covered in grime.

They thought he wouldn't last, they thought he would die, they took him into the monastery for refuge and cared for him there.

He was out cold for the past two days, the priest said, they thought he was done for by now.

_In the forest_. In the forest? He tried to remember what happened—he tried to remember where he had been, and, slowly, the scene at the dungeon returned, the torturer who reminded him so much of this man before him now, but different entirely in demeanor, different completely in tone.

This man, a large giant of a man, bald and with a small dark beard, was just as cumbersome and large as the man before—but, quite distinctly, he was gentle nonetheless.

The water felt good against Matt's throat, and he didn't realize until then just how parched he had been. Small hands grasping hard at the cup, he tilted it all the way, water streaming down his chin and his neck as he drank, and, green eyes darting toward the man with deliberation, he murmured into the crucible,

"_More._"

But how—he must have fallen unconscious at some point. His small hands grasped hard at the mug. They didn't sever his hands.

All at once, he dropped the cup, the thing falling unto his blanket and from there to the floor with a large _clink_, and, grasping at the sheets, he tugged hard, peeling them back.

Through a cloudy haze of sight, he could tell his limbs were all there, his body, despite the bandages, in one solid piece.

"You should drink more slowly,"

Came the priest's voice as he bent to collect the mug from the floor, pouring in more water, and then,

"What is your name?"

Matt looked up, hands still grasping hard at the sheets.

"Mail Jeevas, sir,"

He replied softly, filled curiously with wonderment at his own unbefitting formality; he seldom addressed people as_ sir_.

He then added, "They call me Matt."

When he told the man he had come from Winchester, the priest gazed back for a long time with astonishment.

"Impossible,"

Came the quiet reply, anxious but oddly composed— because Winchester was very far away.

***

Mello left.

He had packed up his things in a little bag, his clothes and his sword and whatever money he had, and, without so much as a word, he left Wammy's House.

When he paged through the Holy Scriptures some days before, he had come across something very unusual. From among the glittering pages of a manuscript there slipped out a curious, small document, completely circular and lined with odd symbols all across, circles and wedges and lines the likes of which he'd never seen before, and, curious, Mello copied them down, meticulously to his own page, before returning the paper back to its source.

Maybe this was magic writing, too. Maybe now that he ran away, at last he could become a mage.

He wandered for a long time, for hours, before approaching the stores in the town and a quiet tavern, where, settling his things on the counter, he asked for a pint of mead.

The barman laughed, and others laughed nearby at the sight of the angry little boy who took himself so seriously as though already he were a man, and Mello accepted the drink with mute rage, glaring as he slid his money across the counter.

He was there for hours, and when later that night L had found him there, practically collapsed at the bar stool, he quietly handed the barman a handful of coins for the odd number of mugs that still were unpaid.

Carrying Mello in his arms, L took him to one of the tables instead, seating him down and beginning slowly to wrap a large fur cape around him.

"Nnnh…"

Mello stirred, and, dark eyes darting in the direction of a nearby barmaid, L tugged softly at her sleeve.

"Some water, please," he asked.

When later Mello's consciousness had begun to return, he noticed L dangling something from in-between his fingers.

Mello's rosary.

"I found this in the garden," he said softly, "near some interesting words carved into the wall."

Silent with rage, Mello said nothing.

"Mello gave up on priesthood, isn't that right."

_Easy for a mage to say_, Mello thought.

For a few moments more, L merely gazed at the cross, hanging quietly at the curved center of the string.

"There was someone else who didn't want to be a priest," he said, still looking away, "when he was a boy, Master Wammy was very sick."

Mello's blue eyes moved slowly in L's direction, hidden for the time being beneath a mane of yellow hair. He didn't speak, but, even without looking, L knew he had his attention.

He told Mello about how Wammy, too, had lost his family to the plague, how he had been ill, himself, a pale, sickly boy who nevertheless subsisted, built curiously to persevere, and was raised in the abbey as a priest.

It may or may not have been God who saved him, or perhaps it was the strength of purpose, the determination to survive that comes with hard work.

Priests grow gardens, this also is true, and thereby through herbalism he came to learn alchemy and expertise in potions, and thereby, too, he became an inventor.

"But really, Mello is grieving his friend."

Mello said nothing, his fingers emerging determined and white from beneath the furry rim of the cape. He traced small trails on the frost lining the mug, eyes straight ahead as he watched the water dripping slowly within the streaks.

_I have no friends._

They sat in silence for a long time, L drinking his own mug of water beside Mello and waiting patiently for the boy to speak.

They had taken Matt away to punish him for theft, but then the whole building had burned down.

_I don't want to be an inventor_.

Something like that doesn't just happen. Buildings don't just randomly burn down like that. Theft isn't punished by burning.

Mello felt dizzy and tired with all the mead he drank; somehow, the boy who took from him his one chance to slay a dragon was the only thing he longed for now that he was gone.

L's long arm came slowly around Mello, gentle, fatherly and warm as he drew him carefully to himself.

"Let's go home,"

He said softly, and, leaving some coins on the tabletop, he lifted Mello carefully in his arms, tucking the cape all around him as he climbed up from the table bench.

Mello didn't resist. He was exhausted, miserable and drunk as his small arms came as of their own accord around L's neck, yellow hair cascading over the bony angle of his shoulder as the young man carried him out.

At home, after L had given him a bath, he laid Mello down on his mattress, carefully tucking him in beneath the sheets.

Alone again, after so many nights that he and Matt had shared a bed.

Quietly, the long digits of L's hand came around Mello's neck, careful as they fastened his rosary back in place.

For a very brief moment, Mello thought of asking L about the document he found inside one of the books, the circular paper with the strange writing. But he held back, instead. It's probably magical writing. He probably never was supposed to see it at all. They probably won't tell him anything.

He'd probably just get in trouble.

Very gently, L leaned forth and, long fingers brushing through Mello's hair, he kissed the boy's forehead, _goodnight_.

Ten years passed since then.

_To be continued…_


	5. Chapter 5

During the years that passed, the land was plagued with strife, illness and fires and wars, the conquest of southern Britain by the Saxons, which lead to agony and peril far beyond anything its people had seen.

For a long time, such houses of God as cathedrals and abbeys were lone places of sanctuary among the battlefields of war, but now even these were in peril, and the hospitals and monasteries that housed hundreds of injured women and men were no longer safe havens.

Missionaries rode out from Winchester to seek help in other lands, from places of solace that might help to carry the burden of the injured and ailing, and had traveled as far to the east as Kent, where the reaches of conquest had yet to invade.

Distastefully resigned to his duty as priest, Mello would have loved nothing more than to fight in the wars, himself, but, to his vast dismay, he remained nevertheless indoors, surviving the battles while caring on the wards for those who weren't so lucky.

When plans were announced of the missionaries to ride out, he practically grasped Roger by the collar of his robe and cried and shouted that he must go with them or he would go mad.

It was dangerous out there, but it had become all the more dangerous, too, to stay inside, so, after several long arguments and many hours of deliberation, at last Mello was granted permission to ride out with the missionaries to the east.

It wasn't easy. Conditions along the roads were hard in the autumn, and downright brutal in the winter that followed after that, and the small group of men battled with illness and challenge all along the way.

When staying one night near a river in their camp, Mello had gone down to the water to wash his clothes and to bathe. Now nearly twenty, he had grown to the full height of a man, yellow hair framing softly the narrow angles of his face and down to his shoulders from there.

He knelt quietly by the river's edge, long fingers careful as he worked at unraveling the laces of his habit. He was just about partway pulling it over his head when he heard rustling, a disruption of the water's surface and distant voices from somewhere far off—then nothing.

Waiting for several moments more, he pulled his robe all the way over his head, and then, returning his attention to his hands' work, he began quietly to dip it in the water, then scrub it against the rocks. The cross around his neck felt cold, metallic against the naked skin of his chest—the only part of him, perhaps, that was priestly at all, a fate from which it seemed perpetually impossible to escape.

He'd never given up.

There would be a day, Mello knew, he'd escape at last. Disciplined and intense, he worked hard at his tasks until then.

Laughter, voices in the water, there it came again—not so distant after all. A woman's voice, he realized, and a man's, and then, after a few moments more, he bit hard at his lip, eyes going wide with embarrassment when he understood. He grabbed quickly at his robe, quietly, and turned around, making his way swiftly back to the camp.

Discipline for a priest came manifested in more ways than one, and, intensely controlled, Mello never did indulge himself in ways of the flesh. On what he missed out, he was acutely aware, and acutely aware also of what to refuse, when to hold back, despite the curiosity that came natural with adolescence and age.

He was angry, too angry inside, and this perhaps came with the intensity of discipline and self-control, with the focus of perfectionism and competition, with years of suppressed pain from childhood and further on.

He had hardly begun to rinse his habit and hadn't bathed at all, but, not daring to return to the river bed, he hung it quietly to dry by the camp, wrapping himself in a sheet before turning to sleep at the edge of the camp, not terribly far from the others.

If there were people nearby, this meant they were probably near the town, probably not terribly far from Canterbury.

Priesthood or not, Mello still carried his sword; he'd grown into it throughout the years, and, priesthood or not, he had learned of his own accord to use it. He had it with him now, and, beneath the sheets, he grasped tightly onto the rigid handle, prepared at any moment to strike out at enemies in a manner so very unbecoming to a priest.

He woke up with a start, when, some time later, he felt upon his face the distinct splatter of water drops, just against his forehead, against the closed membranes of his eyes, and, reflexively, he spun around with his sword. He slashed blindly in the darkness, naked and entangled in a cocoon of sheets, and managed to toppled the figure of another person to the ground.

Breathing hard as he stood above him in the darkness, Mello pointed his sword directly down until he felt it come in contact with flesh, and, without releasing him, he hissed,

"_Who the hell are you?_"

Silence.

In the pitch darkness, Mello could feel against the hard tip of his sword the human rhythm of inspiration, expiration at his victim's throat.

"That's quite a sword,"

Came a soft whisper in return.

A young male voice.

And, in the darkness, Mello thought he could almost see him grinning, and there was a bout of pain there in his heart, something about this that brought back to life sorrows long suppressed.

Mello didn't move a muscle when there came the subtle weight of fingers on his sword, a human hand curiously inspecting the wide metal edge all along its length.

"I've only ever known," came the voice again, "one other boy who carried a sword like this."

Mello allowed it, standing frozen and curiously stunned, hot skin electric with reverberating shivers as haunting echoes of the past raced all throughout him.

Gently, he felt the pressure let up against his weapon as the person moved back, and then the heavy metal tip fell to the ground with a quiet _thud_. In the darkness, the silhouette of a man slowly rose to its feet; Mello's breath hitched as he felt the hot digits of his hand reach toward his naked chest, closing with familiar gentleness around the cross on his rosary.

Neither one of them said a word, but there was only the humid, hot flow of breath, and, for some reason he could not understand, Mello allowed him to inspect his cross, tug softly at it in the darkness, slide his long fingers all around the hard edges of its angular shape.

"You left—you left this by the river bed—"

Came the boy's soft whisper, and, in the darkness, one of his hands rose to reveal a long stretch of rope, the bind Mello used to secure his habit.

_That voice_.

Mello's sword dropped entirely from his hand. For reasons he couldn't understand, he reached forth, long arms stretching blindly in the darkness, grasping at the other boy, holding him tightly to himself, heart racing and skin trembling alive.

That voice. That scent. That body, which once he held close to himself, so many years ago.

_Matty_.

_To be continued…_


	6. Chapter 6

So many nights Mello had awoken with a start, thinking that still beside him was the sleeping form of his only real friend.

A friend.

_I don't need friends._

There were people he admired, and people he didn't understand and people he loathed, but a real friend, a _partner in crime_—how could there possibly be another person who understood Mello, someone with whom Mello didn't feel an intense urge to compete—

It wasn't supposed to happen, was it, Mello had come to understand, or it would have lasted longer.

Is that how it was, and also was he not supposed to have parents, and was he not supposed to have support, this was a lonely struggle, then, and when he prevailed, he would prevail alone.

Still, now and again Mello dreamt that there still was one accomplice at his side, one partner in crime whom he'd feel okay to have around. He'd wake up, disoriented, messy-haired and laughing dryly at himself, how many, how many years has it been, you silly bugger, Matty died years ago.

_How_,

He whispered, slender digits of his hand grazing with careful curiosity along the naked expanse of Matt's back,

"How is it—how—"

His fingers traveled up the boy's chest, to his face, and, in the darkness, they trailed slowly across the warm skin there, the soft, minute wisps of stubble at his cheeks, and—and there was something cold, something angular and glassy—

Matt's hand came gently against Mello's on his face, and, laughing softly, he murmured,

"Optical lenses,"

_They nearly made me blind_,

He told Mello about the night he was taken, the last night they had seen each other, all that time ago, and how he was tied up and tortured, how the man dropped burning powder into his eyes, and he'd been short-sighted since then.

But wasn't there a fire that night? Didn't the building burn down, didn't everyone die, what happened then—

Silence.

"I don't know,"

Came the silent response, none of them knew, it was an odd mystery never quite resolved, what exactly happened that night and how had he traveled as far away as Kent, there were blanks in his memory he never could recall—

Sorcery, that's what people said, mischief, dark magic and perhaps part of the ploy, the whole plan to burn the building down—

But—how dark could it really be, if such a mystical ploy had spared him his life—

Mello listened with quiet astonishment, straining for composure as inside he felt frozen with disbelief.

_This must have been fate. They must have been meant to meet again_.

No—that's all a bunch of bullshit. Things in life don't happen this way.

"That was you in the water. Wasn't it,"

Mello whispered suddenly, and, now back at the river's edge, there came a silver light reflecting in the water, and, for the first time in ten years, they could see each other again.

Matt chuckled, and Mello gazed curiously as the boy's lips stretched into a wide grin, the same boyish grin he just vaguely still remembered, the same freckle-specked cheeks, and, beneath the large spectacles, the same mischievous green eyes.

"Is that why you ran,"

He laughed, and, teeth clenching down in rage, Mello glared adorably at Matt.

_I run from nothing!_

"Say that again and you'll _really_ get a feel of my sword…!"

"Yeah?"

Matt couldn't help grinning. He really did miss the other boy, and, so many years living in a monastery, it seemed he was perpetually reminded of the priest who didn't want to be a priest.

Mello told him about the war back at home, their travels to the east and their journey toward Kent.

"But really," he said quietly, but with intensity restrained, "I'm not going back."

He had just about had it. There was nothing there he wanted to stick around for anymore.

"So, you've run away from one monastery to another."

"I found something," Mello said, "something very long ago."

He told Matt about the strange inscription he found hidden inside one of the Holy manuscripts.

"Someday, I…"

Mello trailed off, biting down hard in silence.

Matt gazed onto Mello with amusement. All this time. All this time, he still hadn't given up on all this; this was, he understood, the only inscription of spells unto which Mello had ever managed to look.

"Someday…" Matt replied, voice soft as the words came hoarsely forth. "_Someday_," he whispered, green eyes twinkling quietly as he scanned Mello's face,

"…_someday, watch out, here comes the dark priest. Here comes Mello_."

Blue eyes darted to Matt's face, but, for once, there was no ridicule there. You have to know the holy ways of light in order to navigate through darkness, is that how it was. Is that what Mello wanted.

Yes, that's what Mello wanted, yes, _you understand_.

But what has Matt wanted?

Matt smiled timidly as he adjusted the spectacles on his nose. Still wet. Still naked. Still cheeky behind all that red hair.

Still the partner in crime.

He smiled sheepishly at Mello, Mello who was still intense as ever, so serious, stretched so tightly with meticulously disciplined rage.

"I haven't got any stolen desserts on me," he said softly with a little smile, I haven't got anything sweet to chill you out.

As Matt spoke, his long fingers swept lightly against the naked skin of Mello's hips, and, ever aware of their slight motion, Mello flipped his gaze immediately to them.

"But I can give you something else you're not supposed to have."

Mello allowed this for several moments more before suddenly pushing Matt away. His eyes glared in the darkness. "To hell with that," he hissed, understanding all too well. It was bad enough that Matt seemed to know his way around this sort of thing, but it was even worse that he understood that Mello didn't.

It was like with that dragon all over again. Like nothing had changed.

Matt laughed softly as Mello pushed him away, and, grinning, he held his hands up in surrender.

"All right," he replied, "you be in charge."

Mello didn't like this either. _Don't patronize me._

His hands curled into angry fists as he hissed,

"I'll decide when I want to."

"Then you do want to."

"Shut up!"

"Let's have it," Matt replied, taunting Mello in whispered tones, "lets' have it, since you want to."

Clenching his teeth in irritation, Mello stepped forth toward Matt, shoving him back.

"Why in the hell would I want to with you—"

He muttered, stepping back and kneeling down to reach for his sword.

Eyebrows raised with amusement, Matt sized Mello up in the darkness. Mello always was a great deal of fun to annoy, and Matt realized in that moment how much he missed that.

Still smiling, he replied with complete innocence,

"Why not?"

Mello glared back.

For several moments more, there was silence.

"Those spectacles make you look stupid."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

Grinning, Matt adjusted them on his nose, deliberately batting his eyes at Mello.

"Do spectacles get you off?"

Mello stared, but before he could tell Matt what an idiot he thought he was, the other boy moved in and, very slowly, brought his mouth to his.

_To be continued..._


End file.
